In this short video we look at the key benefits of a nuclear energy based grid and its  clear advantages compared to a total reliance on wind and solar

Here’s a list of nine key benefits and requirements for a nuclear powered grid in Australia

1.      There are massive cost benefits by adding nuclear to the mix – Its about ½ the cost of a system based on wind and solar.
2.      Nuclear brings vastly greater emissions reductions to the system – like about ¼ the emissions of wind and solar.
3.      A nuclear based system uses 1/5th of the non-renewable resources of a full wind and solar grid.
4.      We can make our future energy systems right here in Australia using our own people, uranium, steel and concrete with help along the way from our friends in Korea and Canada.
5.      We can Re-industrialise around nuclear in our old manufacturing centres of Newcastle, Wollongong, Victoria and South Australia.
6.      We must Significantly increase the investment in people required to re-industrialise Australia. Large increases in Commonwealth Scholarships to Engineering and Science students to cancel out HECS debt. Ditto to apprentices. The nation should pay to educate its people. HECs and Apprentice costs are a dead weight on economic growth.
7.      There are massive environmental benefits of using nuclear by not destroying forests and agricultural lands. By not destroying the visual amenity of our regions. By using an energy resource that has the lowest environmental impact of any energy system
8.      A nuclear based system does not need deep storage systems like SNH 2.0 and Borumba which are hugely expensive and must be scrapped – $18 billion each
9.      The speed of a nuclear roll out – In France, Ontario and Sweden it has shown to be the fastest way to install a zero carbon energy system.

Robert Parker

Nuclear For Climate Australia

https://nuclearforclimate.com.au/

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Members who accompanied Ted O’Brien were Helen Cook, Robert Parker, Stephen Wilson and Jasmin Diab.
The meetings and organisation were handled brilliantly by Mike Newman.

We spoke with key constructors of nuclear power plants such as Hyundai, Samsung and Daewoo as well as KEPCO and KHNP.
The delegation also met with nuclear energy educators at KINGS and equipment manufacturers and suppliers

The post Australian Nuclear Energy Delegation to South Korea first appeared on Nuclear for Climate Australia.

GNE Advisory is a boutique law practice dedicated to the nuclear energy sector. Helen Cook, Principal of GNE Advisory, has expertise advising on both the structuring and establishment of the legal and regulatory infrastructure for civilian nuclear power programmes, as well as the strategic development and negotiation of commercial arrangements for new nuclear power plants, including procurement, construction and financing.

In her submission to the House Select Committee Inquiry into Nuclear Energy she submitted that:

1. Our existing nuclear regulator ARPANSA could be ready to receive a construction license appliacation for one or more nuclear reactors within three years of a policy decision to implement a civil nuclear programme.
2. The Coalition’s timeline of first nuclear on the grid between 10-12 years is achievable.

The following link provides the full submission from GNE Advisory’s Helen Cook

Submission 206 – Helen Cook

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Submission to: House Select Committee on Nuclear Energy

Robert Parker 13^th November, 2024

Nuclear Energy is Essential to Meeting the National Electricity Law

Executive Summary

The key theme of this submission which is outlined in Sections 2 and 3 makes the case that only by using baseload nuclear energy, as our dominant form of electricity generation, can we provide ultra low carbon emissions while at the same time providing the lowest cost form of generation.

In Section 2 we provide the results of six electricity generation scenarios. These compare the NEM situation in 2022 with 100% “Renewables”, AEMO’s Step Change and Progressive Change scenarios and 50% and 75% nuclear generation options.

Full Life Cycle Analysis parameters are used to calculate the emissions of all scenarios. The two nuclear options have the lowest system costs and only the 75% nuclear is ultra-low carbon. The 100% Renewable, Step Change and Progressive Change fail to achieve either low or ultra-low emissions and therefore do not provide a solution that meets the requirements of the National Electricity Law.  The results are shown in the following Figure 1 from the report.

Based on these results the National Electricity Objective as stated in the National Electricity Law (NEL) cannot be met unless a system based on high levels of nuclear energy is deployed. The NEL is in direct conflict with the laws preventing nuclear energy production contained in the ARPANS and EPBC Acts

This leads to the nuclear energy implementation timeline shown in the next image which is Figure 5 in the main report.

1. The nuclear roll out is completed in 2060 with 30 GW of installed nuclear capacity using AP1000 large plants and i-SMR small plants. Other options such as APR1400 and BWRX 300 could also be used. The plants operate at 79% capacity factor in 2060.
2. Installed wind is 18.4GW, Grid solar – 8.8 GW and roof top solar is 26.3GW. This is similar to current levels.

4.           Emissions intensity in 2060 on an LCA basis is 41 g CO2/kWh & cost to consumers is 38.5 c/kWh. Emissions in 2050 are 48 gr CO2/kWh (LCA), 3 gr CO2/kWh Burned Fossil Fuel (BFF) or about 1/3rd that of the Step Change Scenario in the same year.

A bar chart showing fourteen plant locations together with plant types and precedent activities is included in Figure 6.

Also included is a comparison of the speed of this programme with the achievements in other nations – it’s a conservative and achievable target.

Thanks to Grant Chalmers for compiling this chart

In Section 4 the report details the huge materials consumption associated with a system dependent on wind and solar. The energy transition was intended to herald a more sustainable future however attempting to achieve this with wind and solar will only result in a massive increase in materials consumption. These materials will litter the landscape and their end of life retrieval is neither certain nor affordable.

A 100% “Renewable” system uses between 5.1 and 6.2 times more materials over an 80 year period than a nuclear based system. If the term “Renewable” is to mean anything at all it is best reserved for nuclear energy

Section 5 of the report deals with water demand and cooling of nuclear power plants. Research by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe finds that nuclear power plants use similar of slightly lower amounts of cooling water compared to coal plants. Data from EPRI in the US indicates similar levels or slightly more is used in nuclear plants. This report notes that in Australia siting of plants on the coast using sea water cooling in close proximity to large load centres is the ideal solution. Cooling using once through cycles from large cooling ponds as was used at Liddell power plant would also be environmental prudent.

Section 6 deals primarily with seismic risk. Australia is seismically stable being similar to the stability of eastern and central USA and far from unstable plate boundaries. Recent tremors in the Hunter region or in Gippsland or the 1989 Newcastle earthquake pose no safety risk to the safe operation of nuclear power plants.

It is entirely feasible and accords with precedent that the NEM can achieve true ultra low emissions electricity at a cost of about ½ that of a system reliant on wind, solar, hydro and gas backup. Such a nuclear energy system would contain 21 GW of nuclear energy plants built by 2050 and total 30GW by 2030. The plants would be located at 14 sites within Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

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In this paper we compare the effectiveness of electricity generating systems based exclusively on wind, solar and hydro – referred to as “Renewable” with those based predominantly on nuclear energy. We compare their results in terms of emissions intensity and cost with the National Electricity Objectives as stated in the National Electricity Law (NEL). We find that only nuclear energy based systems can meet the requirements of the NEL in term of cost and reaching Net Zero emissions goals.

1.     Introduction

All states and territories are committed to “Net Zero by 2050” economy wide This applies to transport, electricity generation, agriculture, waste handling, heavy and light industry and industrial processes.

It’s easier to decarbonise the electricity sector than other sectors because:

• the sources of generation are stationary and
• we have the established transmission and distribution system in place that can feed ultra-low carbon energy to consumers and
• Successful International precedent exists

2.     Ultra Low Carbon Generators

Electricity production must facilitate carbon reductions in other sectors such as:

1. Transport sector via battery charging or the production of zero carbon liquid fuels,
2. Industrial sector using hydrogen in processes such as steel making,
3. Industrial processes through the replacement of fossil fuels with electricity.

For example, given the difficulties in decarbonising the agricultural sector and many industrial processes, electricity production must be ultra-low carbon to minimise overhang from the other sectors.

That means that the electricity system must have an emissions intensity of 50 g-CO₂/kWh or less measured on a Life Cycle Analysis basis (LCA). LCA takes account of embodied emissions incurred through the mining, manufacturing processes and plant construction.

3.     Achieving Ultra Low Emissions and Cost

In brief we compared six scenarios to determine the lowest cost ultra-low emissions scenario. The scenarios were:

1. A control which used an energy mix similar to that of the NEM in 2022,
2. A 100% renewable system which contains no fossil fuel backup,
3. The AEMO Step Change Scenario in 2050,
4. The AEMO Progressive Change Scenario in 2050,
5. Nuclear Integrated System Plan – 50% Nuclear,
6. Nuclear Integrated System Plan – 74% Nuclear,

Our analysis reveals that in the case of scenarios 2, 3 and 4 which rely almost exclusively on wind and solar energy very high levels of spillage and/or curtailment occur. In effect not all energy can be used leading to high costs due to low capacity factors, equipment redundancy and low utilisation of transmission

The tool we used to carry out these comparisons was the Electric Power Consulting ty Ltd “Power System Generation Mix Model”. An example of the application of the model is contained in the EPC modelling of the AEMO Draft 2024 ISP that was released in December 2023. This can be viewed at this link:

https://www.epc.com.au/wp-content/uploads/EPC-Submission-on-the-2024-Draft-ISP-20240216-Final.pdf

For this report the costs of generators were obtained from the CSIRO GenCost report except for nuclear energy which used:

• A$10,000/kW overnight capital cost. Increased from GenCost value of $8,655/kW
• A$8.16/MWh fuel allowance in line with Nuclear Energy Institute values
• A$31 allowed for operations and maintenance in line with Nuclear Energy Institute values

Emissions factors used for generators in the model are shown in “Table 1 Emissions Factors and Parameters used in Scenario Modelling”.

The emissions factors used are measured in T/MW and T/MWh and some explanation is needed to for these units:

• For constructed plant or equipment the embodied carbon dioxide is reported as of tonnes per megawatt (T/MW). This fixed amount is disbursed over every unit of energy (MWh) that the plant and equipment produce over their service life.
• For fuel burned in a fossil fuelled plant the emissions are reported as tonnes of carbon dioxide produced from burning to produce a MWh of electrical energy, namely T/MWh.
• For constructed storages such as batteries or pumped hydro we also use tonnes of carbon dioxide per MWh (T/MWh) but in this case the unit relates to the construction and size of the storage which is measured in MWh. So for example, how many tonnes of carbon dioxide were produced to build the capacity of a battery or pumped storage facility to store a MWh of energy.

The value of 2,614 T/MW for solar PV has a significant impact on the overall emissions intensities calculated for each scenario, especially for high levels of “Renewables”. It was obtained from recent analysis done by Seaver Wang of the Breakthrough Institute at this link:
http://Solar PV GHG calculation, head-to-head – Google Docs

The value of 2,614 T/MW was used to reflect the near total dominance of Chinese manufactured solar panels in the Australian market. Throughout the Chinese manufacturing process very high levels of electricity is generated using coal power.

The comparative cost and emissions performance of each scenario was modeled and is summarised in Figure 1

Figure 1 – Nuclear and Renewable Energy Scenarios

1. The left-hand axis shows electricity costs in c/kWh while the right-hand axis shows system emissions intensity in g-CO₂/kWh on a Life Cycle Analysis basis.
2. On each column blue represents cost of system generation, yellow represents extra cost for high voltage users getting energy from high and medium voltage transmission such as large industry and urban electric train systems.
3. Green represents the extra cost to distribute energy from the High Voltage transmission system through to low voltage users such as general industry, small business and residential users.
4. The dashed red line and data points are the emissions intensity derived from fuel burning for each scenario.
5. The continuous red line and data points are the total system emissions intensity using Life Cycle Analysis (LCA)for each scenario.

Of the low carbon options the two nuclear scenarios have the lowest system costs and only the 75% nuclear is ultra-low carbon. The 100% Renewable and the Step Change fail to achieve either low or ultra-low emissions.

The reasons are shown in the following three images.

3.2  Step Change Scenario fails to achieve low emissions or low costs

Figure 2 – Step Change Energy Graphic

Figure 2 – Step Change Energy Graphic shows a ten day period in a June month. The thick black wavey  line represents the NEM load, dark blue represents hydro, grey is gas, green is wind, pink tones represent battery and pumped storage and the two yellow tones represent roof top and grid solar PV. Orange above PV represents spillage/curtailment.

Under the red arrow on the right-hand side we have a day when the system meets load with no spillage because wind output is very low. Under the left-hand red arrow wind has returned, storage is minimised and spillage is very large. This demonstrates some of the fundamental reasons why wind and solar based systems fail both emissions and cost minimisation.

These are:

1. Large amounts of redundant generation and storage are required to cope with fluctuating wind and solar output. In effect we have a very large “overbuild”.
2. Collapse of capacity factors caused by redundancy drives up embodied emissions especially from installed solar PV and gas backup to around 145 g-CO₂/kWh. This is a mediocre emissions reduction and can’t be described as “low carbon”.
3. Expansion of the High and Medium Voltage transmission grid has inefficient levels of utilisation due to fluctuating outputs from Renewable Energy Zones. This drives up network costs.
4. Very high levels of installed battery and pumped storage have low capacity factors and very high costs and embodied emissions.
5. Spillage/curtailment of 30% of generation occurs with the Step Change scenario.

3.3  100% Wind, Solar and Hydro Scenario fails to achieve low emissions or low costs

A 10 day winter period with 100% wind, solar and hydro is shown in Figure 3 – 100% “Renewable Energy” Graphic. Here we have a scenario where gas backup is removed from the system which is now totally reliant on wind, solar and hydro.

Figure 3 – 100% “Renewable Energy” Graphic

Costs rise massively due to very large increases in redundancy, storage, distribution and transmission. We now have 5.1 times more power capacity connected to the grid compared to an equivalent nuclear scenario and 60% of energy is curtailed or spilled. With these huge amounts of connected generation and storage the emissions intensity remains stubbornly high at 189 g-CO₂/kWh on an LCA basis. despite the removal of fossil fuel-powered generation from the system.

3.4  75% nuclear scenario with wind, solar and hydro achieve ultra-low emissions at economic costs

Reference is made to Figure 4 – 75% nuclear energy with wind, solar and hydro.

This scenario contains 33.5 GW of installed nuclear capacity operating at 81% capacity factor. Assumed NEM demand is 315 TWh per year compared to the current value of approximately 200TWh/year.

Figure 4 – 75% nuclear energy with wind, solar and hydro

The costs of nuclear power plants used in this analysis are:

• A$10,000/kW overnight capital cost.
• A$8.16/MWh fuel allowance
• A$31 allowed for operations and maintenance
• 6% Annual Discount Rate,
• For this example the calculated LCOE is A$140/MWh at 81% capacity factor

Emissions on an LCA basis have dropped to 34 g-CO₂/kWh. The retail cost to consumers is 34 c/kWh is ½ that of the Step Change Scenario and 1/3^rd that of the 100% wind, solar and hydro option.

4.     A Nuclear Plan for the NEM

A proposed timeline for the roll out of a comprehensive nuclear energy plan is shown in  Figure 5 – A Nuclear Plan for the NEM

Relevant parameters are:

1. Roll out is completed in 2060 with 36.8 GW of installed nuclear capacity.
2. Plants operate at 84% capacity factor.
3. Installed wind is 11.5GW, Grid solar – 23 GW and roof top solar is 25GW.
4. Total NEM load in 2060 is 364 TWh/yr.
5. Emissions intensity in 2060 will be 36 g CO₂/kWh and cost to consumers is 35.5 c/kWh
6. Emissions in 2050 are 51 gr CO₂/kWh or about 1/3^rd that of the Step Change Scenario in the same year.
7. Coal plants continue through to 2050 though at a significantly diminishing rate.
8. Gas consumption is minimised to prevent the construction of stranded assets and minimise electricity costs.

Figure 5 – A Nuclear Plan for the NEM

Claims that nuclear “takes too long” and “we have no time to wait” are addressed in Figure 6 Cumulative Emissions – Step Change vs Nuclear

Here we show that a nuclear baseload system will have lower accumulated emissions after the 2070’s and then cumulative emissions from nuclear energy will always be lower than a 100% wind and solar based system. Given the high levels of embodied emissions the hopes for a fast transition to low carbon energy using wind and solar will not materialise

A real world example of this happens everyday with the comparison of French electricity emissions with its neighbour in Germany shown in Figure 7 German vs French Electricity sector Emissions.

Figure 6 Cumulative Emissions – Step Change vs Nuclear

Figure 7 – German vs French Electricity sector Emissions

Image uses data from Fraunhofer ISE, RTI-France, ENSTO-E and Radiant Energy Group

5.     Materials Consumption is minimised with nuclear energy.

The energy transition was intended to herald a more sustainable future however attempting to achieve this with wind and solar will only result in a massive increase in materials consumption. These materials will litter the landscape and their end of life retrieval is neither certain nor affordable.

We have compared the materials use of two scenarios over an 80 year life in Table 2 – Materials used in Nuclear Energy system vs 100% wind and solar. That period was chosen because it can be expected that modern nuclear power plants such as the AP1000 will last for 80 years while wind generators will last for 30 years and solar PV for 25 years.

To arrive at these values in Table 2 we used recent data from the “Updated Mining Footprints and Raw Material Needs for Clean Energy – Challenges and opportunities for managing energy transition mining impacts” by Wang, Cook, Stein, Lloyd and Smith of the Breakthrough Institute. Its available at this link:

https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/updated-mining-footprints-and-raw-material-needs-for-clean-energy

We then applied the materials used in wind, solar, nuclear and batteries to the amount of generating and storage capacity used in a 100% “Renewables” scheme on the NEM to a comparable Nuclear Energy scheme. We used the amount of equipment required in the comparison from values obtained in scenarios modelled by Nuclear For Climate Australia and Electric Power Consulting

Advocates for wind and solar frequently claim that components from these “Renewable” schemes are recyclable. This potential is limited by the energy and cost inputs required to recycle these components especially where:

1. they are located far from their place of manufacture and;
2. the costs of recovery are incurred in economies that have higher labour and equipment inputs than the place of extraction, refining and manufacture.

Nevertheless the degree to which recycling can occur was handled by looking at both the initial materials load for each system with the subsequent rebuild. Even if 100% of the Wind and Solar system could be recycled its initial materials load of 191 Million tonnes of gear would require 3.9 times that of the nuclear system with 72 million tonnes.

At the end of the day, materials consumption in manufactured items is a good proxy for comparative costs. This reinforces our finding that a nuclear energy based system is ½ to 1/3^rd the cost of a “Renewables” system. Given the large amounts of materials used with wind and solar it begs the question – What Does Renewable Mean?

In Figure 8 shown next, the brown columns show the initial materials load of a 100% RE system and orange above brown shows the contested amount that possibly could be recycled to some degree. Likewise the dark and light green show the ranges for the nuclear system.

Figure 8 Comparison of materials used in 100% wind and solar scheme with a nuclear dominated scheme

6.     Conclusion

There will be no net zero or any other zero emissions outcome unless a system based on high levels of nuclear energy is deployed.

Systems based exclusively on wind, solar and hydro cannot achieve deep decarbonisation in order to conform with jurisdictions aiming for “Net Zero”. This failure is due to high levels of embodied carbon and the collapse in capacity factors when wind and solar have high penetration rates on the grid.

These conclusions are supported by the very large amounts of material required to deploy wind and solar which are four to five times greater than required by a nuclear based system.

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It presents conclusions drawn from references looking at the health impacts on workers operating nuclear power plants and addresses concerns regarding leukaemia in children living near those plants.

Surprisingly, there’s some evidence that low dose radiation is beneficial
So, please read on:
Industrial Radiation Health Impacts

The post Health Impacts of Radiation from Nuclear Power and Industry first appeared on Nuclear for Climate Australia.

1. The significantly lower cancer death rate of the nuclear workers cohort compared to the non nuclear worker controls suggests that increased low LET radiation may have stimulated their immune systems, as reported in other irradiated populations (Calabrese and Baldwin, 2000).
2. There was a  24% lower Standardised Mortality Ratio (SMR) from all causes of
   the nuclear exposed cohort (p < 10–16) compared to the non nuclear exposed controls. A 24% lower SMR implies a 2.8-year increase in average lifespan.

Click on the following link

Sponsler and Cameron 2005 Shipyard Worker Study

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It’s tied to the cost of our food, clothing, housing, healthcare and the inventions of our modern societies. The less it costs and the fewer resources it consumes, the more society flourishes

In this interview with Nick Rheinberger on ABC Illawarra we discuss my recent essay on Energy and Human Dignity. You can listen to the interview here

Link to the original essay is here

Energy Sustainability and Human Dignity

The post Energy Density and Human Dignity on ABC Illawarra first appeared on Nuclear for Climate Australia.

Energy is the lifeblood of our society.

It’s tied to the cost of our food, clothing, housing, healthcare and the inventions of our modern societies. The less it costs and the fewer resources it consumes, the more society flourishes. Human development progressed after we replaced energy sources that used a lot of effort to harvest such as wood burning and draught animals. From 1AD to 1650AD per capita GDP did not increase and people lived and died in poverty. Burning wood and growing crops only produced about ten units of energy for each unit of effort invested. This was just enough for subsistence living and nothing for surplus development[i]

After 1650AD coal burning started and societies went from gaining ten units of energy at subsistence levels to thirty units for every unit expended. The world grew and flourished from surplus energy. Nuclear power can deliver vastly better gains. Current plants provide a hundred units of energy for every unit invested. Newer fourth generation types such as molten salt reactors could see this multiplier double again. Atom for atom, splitting the uranium nucleus gives us 20 million times more energy than burning an atom of carbon.

Most of us hoped that switching to low carbon energy sources would create a system with reduced environmental impact. Unfortunately attempting this with wind and solar ignores history’s valuable lesson – increased energy density drives wealth and creativity.

Harvesting our environment for low grade energy using wind and solar yields poor returns for our efforts reverting to values of around ten similar to when we burned wood. Worse still, a high price will be paid by our native habitats and rural landscapes. Society cannot be held hostage to the vagaries of the weather. Load shedding by industry is raising the white flag on our economy. The risks of failure with randomly variable power sources are so high, and their environmental toll so great, that we must embrace a sustainable large scale roll out of nuclear energy.

Unintended Consequences

We know from history that technologies can have greater impacts than we initially recognise. In the 1950s the public was swayed by the freedom of private motor vehicle use. This led to urban sprawl and the destruction of public transport infrastructure such as the removal of Sydney’s tram network. The car came to dominate the design of our cities and towns. Consumerism grew to match our sprawl and required the ability of cars to carry goods from huge car parks in a way that individuals on public transport could never match.

Consumerism has now found fertile ground in distributed and micro energy systems with the rush to subsidised solar PV combined in some cases with batteries. The equipment is consumer grade and, in the hands of people who did not sign up to be micro power station managers, it’s questionable how these systems will perform or last. Under ideal conditions, they use at least twelve times the materials per unit of energy of a modern nuclear power plant and generate twelve times the emissions.

The trouble is, as the Canberra Battery Testing Centre recently found, battery storage fails quite often with only 25% working as they were supposed to. The rest had problems ranging from temporary breakdowns to complete failure. Failure of PV systems and batteries, or early upgrading to newer technology, means they become high carbon emitting, materials intensive sources of electronic pollution.

Sustainability of Nuclear Energy

The United Nations[ii], the European Union Joint Research Council[iii] and EDF[iv] have reported on the life Cycle Assessment of electricity generation options. They found that nuclear energy has lower emissions than any other generating source including wind and solar. Current nuclear plants have emissions as low as 4 gr CO2/kWh. Wind is typically around 30 gr CO2/kWh but with the addition of material’s hungry batteries emissions climb to 110 gr CO2/kWh. Solar is similarly afflicted with emissions intensities up around 70 gr CO2/kWh inclusive of batteries even in ideal conditions.

Nations and states with nuclear energy such as France, Sweden and Ontario consistently have amongst the lowest emissions and no nation, without strong backup from its neighbours, has yet achieved low carbon emissions with wind or solar.

The energy density of nuclear fission drives its very low materials consumption. If the term “renewable” is to mean anything sensible then nuclear energy is the best example.

In addition to the climate change potential, the UN report expanded its comparisons to a further thirteen environmental metrics covering things such as exotic minerals, particulate matter, pollution of the land and seas and water use. When it came to issues of non-cancer forming human toxicity, nuclear energy and wind were equal, beaten only by small scale hydro. As a source of human cancer forming toxicity nuclear energy carries less risk than almost all other energy systems including wind and solar and is beaten only by small hydro.

When all factors were tallied in the UN report, nuclear energy performed better on environmental grounds than wind and PV and was only beaten by small hydro.

The Human Toll

Finally, we come to the human toll. The large nuclear plants being built by France are expensive because the French are rebuilding its industrial and human capacity and inventiveness. As the roll out continues, costs and timelines will reduce and the result will be secure low carbon energy for France and Europe more widely.

Cross the border into Germany and we see the fearful toll on humanity and the environment being extracted by German energy policy. As the war in Ukraine rages, Germany leads the charge in funding Russian war crimes by purchasing oil and gas. This action flows directly from a Greens’ party led push to turn off nuclear power plants in favour of increased gas and coal burning.

Germany could turn its nuclear power plants back on. It could reduce emissions; it could increase arms shipments and it could help to save Ukrainian lives, but chooses to support Putin instead.

Solar PV extracts a similar human toll. In Australia we could choose to invest in our industry and human talent by a nation-wide roll out of nuclear power plants. Instead, we choose to import PV systems from China manufactured at the lowest cost by slave labour[v]. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has placed millions of indigenous Uyghur and Kazakh citizens from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region into what the government calls “surplus labour” and “labour transfer” programmes. Here, some 45% of the world’s polysilicon is made and 90 Chinese and international companies have supply chains which are affected. If your solar gear is made in China, chances are it’s on the backs of slave labour and that’s what underpins the CSIRO and AEMO’s claims for cost reductions in solar energy.

Labor’s Direction

Our new Government needs to put the labour back into Labor. We cannot hitch our energy security onto low-cost imports of polluting solar and wind equipment requiring continuous replacement from places like China and India.

We must invest in our own human capital just as France, Canada and South Korea are doing with their nuclear energy programmes.

[i] Decouple podcast and Commodities Investor Leigh Goehring

[ii] Life Cycle Assessment of Electricity Generation Options. United Nations Economic Commissions for Europe 2021

[iii] EU Joint Research Centre technical assessment of Nuclear Energy. Technical assessment of nuclear energy with respect to the ‘do no significant harm’ criteria of Regulation (EU) 2020/852 (‘Taxonomy Regulation’)

[iv] Life Cycle Analysis of the EDF nuclear fleet, 2019

[v] https://www.shu.ac.uk/helena-kennedy-centre-international-justice/research-and-projects/all-projects/in-broad-daylight

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